Title: Announcing Project Document All The Things!
Post by: verdraith on January 02, 2023, 08:41:47 PM
Post by: verdraith on January 02, 2023, 08:41:47 PM
Rebuilding after a disk crash is always fun... trying to re-create things as they were. After experiencing a mild case of disappointment due to archive.org only archiving a small fraction of the NeXT docs I use to host, I decided to just fire up LatinByrd and do it all again.
That's when it hit me. There are plenty of HTML versions of the NeXT admin and developer guides out there, and most require constant navigation of directories to find the one thing you need. So, with this in mind, I decided that it's ${CURRENT_YEAR} and I should use some of that there HTML wot people are so fond of.
So....... introducing Project Document All The Things!
The aim of this project is to generate HTML documentation for all major versions of NeXT platforms, and then to wrap them in a HTML frameset so that it can be viewed without pressing 'back' millions of times because you navigated down the wrong directory structure.
The project's files are on GitHub: https://github.com/Asmodai/NeXT-Docs
Right now, the NeXTSTEP 3.3 admin and developer books are available, and the OPENSTEP 4.2 developer book will be added soon (though not the OS4.2 admin book, as that's pretty much identical to the NS3.3 one.)
There have also been some 'bug fixes' -- the NS3.3 developer documentation has a snafu in that the Application reference is actually a duplicate of ActionCell. I've fixed this by using the Application reference from the NeXTSTEP 3.2 Developer CD.
Feel free to grab a copy. Bug reports and suggestions welcome; but bear in mind that this is meant to work on any browser newer than Netscape 2, so it won't utilise the latest and greatest fancy-schmancy HTML/CSS eyecandy.
Caveat Emptor: There's no index for browsers that don't do framesets... that will be a feature that's added soon-ish[1]
Here's what it looks like in Firefox:
And in OmniWeb 3:
And in OmniWeb 2 -- it tried, I guess.
1] 'soon-ish' is defined as a time period starting *now*, and with a duration no greater than the time remaining until the heat death of the universe.
That's when it hit me. There are plenty of HTML versions of the NeXT admin and developer guides out there, and most require constant navigation of directories to find the one thing you need. So, with this in mind, I decided that it's ${CURRENT_YEAR} and I should use some of that there HTML wot people are so fond of.
So....... introducing Project Document All The Things!
The aim of this project is to generate HTML documentation for all major versions of NeXT platforms, and then to wrap them in a HTML frameset so that it can be viewed without pressing 'back' millions of times because you navigated down the wrong directory structure.
The project's files are on GitHub: https://github.com/Asmodai/NeXT-Docs
Right now, the NeXTSTEP 3.3 admin and developer books are available, and the OPENSTEP 4.2 developer book will be added soon (though not the OS4.2 admin book, as that's pretty much identical to the NS3.3 one.)
There have also been some 'bug fixes' -- the NS3.3 developer documentation has a snafu in that the Application reference is actually a duplicate of ActionCell. I've fixed this by using the Application reference from the NeXTSTEP 3.2 Developer CD.
Feel free to grab a copy. Bug reports and suggestions welcome; but bear in mind that this is meant to work on any browser newer than Netscape 2, so it won't utilise the latest and greatest fancy-schmancy HTML/CSS eyecandy.
Caveat Emptor: There's no index for browsers that don't do framesets... that will be a feature that's added soon-ish[1]
Here's what it looks like in Firefox:
And in OmniWeb 3:
And in OmniWeb 2 -- it tried, I guess.
1] 'soon-ish' is defined as a time period starting *now*, and with a duration no greater than the time remaining until the heat death of the universe.